


Five time Mack hugs Melinda and one time she hugs him

by swimmiNgDiNosauR



Series: Melinda May fluff and random stuff [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14371602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmiNgDiNosauR/pseuds/swimmiNgDiNosauR
Summary: Mack is a hugger.





	Five time Mack hugs Melinda and one time she hugs him

**1.**

There is a loud squeal and then an embarrassed cough coming from Coulson’s office that’s heard all over the base. Mack doesn’t blush but he looks at the ground for a few seconds.

“Thank you, sir,” he says. He tries to hide his smile but it gets out. “Yes! Finally,” he grins as he walks out of Coulson’s office.

Coulson smiles after him, shutting the door. “Don’t break her,” he calls after him.

“Yes, sir,” Mack says and the joy is still in his voice. “Lola’s in good hands.”

 

Five hours later, sweaty and covered in grease, Mack makes his way into the common room where the others are, minus Melinda who’s currently working off steam in one of the training rooms. He washes his hands in the sink and then sits down beside Hunter who pulls a face and moves about an inch away.

“Thank you,” he tells Coulson again, accepting the beer Hunter offers him.

“Why are you saying thank you again?” Skye asks, leaning forward.

Mack beams. “Coulson let me work on Lola,” he tells her, settling back into the couch.

Skye’s jaw drops. “ _What_?”

“I know, right? Awesome, huh?”

“But he won’t even let me _sit_ in her!” Skye protests.

“Melinda convinced me,” Coulson says. “Said it was … good for team bonding or something like that.”

“Really?” Mack asks.

Coulson nods with a smile on his face. “Yep.”

Melinda chooses that moment to walk in. She’s still in her black workout clothes. Mack stands up when she comes in and she glances up at him before heading towards the kitchen. He sweeps her up in his arms.

“Gah!” Melinda yelps, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” Mack says sincerely.

“Your welcome,” Melinda says, giving Coulson a dark look. “What for?”

“Lola. Coulson says you convinced him to let me work on her,” Mack explains, setting her down.

“Ah. I thought you could do something other than stare at her for the better part of your days.” She heads to the kitchen but Hunter stops her with an outstretched arm holding a bottle of beer. “He thinks it’s team bonding but that stuff’s rubbish.”

 

**2.**

Melinda runs through the SHIELD base. Everyone else is in the bunker except for Mack. She throws her arms over her head as the roof shakes again. She doesn’t know what’s happening, only that Skye’s losing control again. She stops in her tracks when she sees the rubble in the middle of the hallway and the gaping hole in the roof.

She sifts through it, chucking bits of brick over her shoulder. She comes across one of Mack’s shoes. She follows it up to his ankle and then his knee and then his hip. She finds his other leg. Another tremor shakes the base. She swears, cursing the obelisk and whatever it did to Skye. Mack’s leg twitches.

“Mack?” she asks, still moving chunks of brick. She moves over to where she thinks his face should be and starts clearing the rubble from there. His hand comes into view and then the rest of his arm, covering his head. He blinks up at her, shaking the dust from his head. “You alright?” Then she rolls her eyes. Of course he’s not alright. He’s covered in bricks. “Can you move?” she rephrases.

Mack groans and wiggles his fingers. He helps Melinda clear the rubble when he can properly move. She helps him stand and leads him towards the bunker. He’s leaning on her heavily. They’re both breathing heavily when they reach the bunker. Melinda bangs on the door loudly. Coulson opens it cautiously but when he sees who it is, he flings it open and tries to help her but she just shrugs him off, setting Mack down against the wall. Coulson shuts and locks the door.

Melinda slumps down beside Mack, scanning the room. “Where’s Skye?”

“Can’t get to her,” Coulson says. “She’s surrounded by rubble.”

Melinda goes to stand up but Mack stops her.

“She’ll be fine,” Mack says groggily. “She’s making it, after all.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders and leans in for a one-armed hug. “Thanks.”

She pats his arm. “No problem.”

 

**3.**

Melinda comes back from a mission covered in blood. She flinches whenever anyone tries to touch her. She stands in the corner on the quinjet, trying to disappear. Mack takes one look at the pilot who’s pointedly not paying them any attention. He can see white knuckles gripping the yoke. He unbuckles his seatbelt and stands up, catching the attention of Melinda. She takes a tiny step backwards. He wraps her in his arms, ignoring the smell of blood.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, keeping her pressed against him. “You did your best.”

She relaxes into him and pretends he’s Phil.

 

When they walk off the quinjet, no one mentions how Mack has a Melinda-shaped blood stain on his clothes.

And if Skye pulls him aside later on and teases, “That’s three hugs now. Are you sure she hasn’t killed you and replaced you with a robot?” Well, that’s his business.

 

**4.**

Mack usually doesn’t let anyone interrupt his and Fitz’s gaming time but when Melinda comes and sits down beside them, he plugs in the third controller and hands it to her. Turns out she’s actually pretty good at it. She knocks Fitz out of the game when she shoots him three times in the chest and he dies. Mack laughs and goes to restart the game but then Melinda turns on him. He frowns and shoots at her but she ducks and hides behind a tree. The tree explodes.

“C’mon, May,” Mack complains, running from the bullets. “When do you even have time to play games like this?”

“On missions,” Melinda says nonchalantly.

“What–? Oh, come on, this isn’t fair. You have an advantage.”

“You talk too much,” Melinda says before shooting his head in.

The screen goes black and then the words ‘Player 3 wins’ blink on and off.

“I win,” Melinda says, settling back into the couch.

Mack just snorts. “You cheated.”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “Poor sport.”

 

Mack can’t stop thinking about how she beat him so easily. Video games are his _thing_. His and Turbo’s. He’ll beat her one day.

He stays up late practising, refining all his skills so that when he challenges her he’ll be able to win.

It takes him a week and by the time he’s ready, Melinda’s on a mission with Bobbi. He waits for her to get back but she’s gone three days. He thinks he might die by the time it takes her to land the quinjet.

Turbo hands him the controllers, already in on it and hoping Mack will win. Melinda limps off down the ramp of the jet. He winces. Looks like she got hurt. Maybe he’ll have to wait a little longer.

Then Melinda spots him and her gaze fixes on the controllers in his hands. Her lips curve upwards into a smirk and she makes her way towards him.

“You want a rematch?” she teases.

“Spent all week practising. You’re going down,” he says as he hands her one of the controllers.

She just snorts. “You wish.”

They head down to the common room and start up the game. Their team follows, wondering what on earth is happening, especially because video games are Mack and Fitz’s thing.

About half an hour later, they’re still playing. They gravitated towards each other, pressed together. It’s also because everyone has squashed onto the one couch beside them.

Mack gets a crucial shot at Melinda and cheers. Melinda blows Mack’s leg off in retaliation. She stifles a laugh at how ridiculous he looks, hopping around.

“Ouch,” Skye mutters when Mack fires bullet after bullet at Melinda. Melinda runs in circles and somehow manages to miss all of the fifty or so bullets except five.

Melinda retreats to a cave and finds a bear sleeping. She jumps on the bear and then runs back towards Mack when it wakes up. Mack tries to hop away but he’s too slow so he turns his guns on the bear, wasting more of his ammo. While he’s distracted with the bear, Melinda shoots at him.

Both of their health is low, under twenty. Melinda has more ammo. Melinda runs her player in a circle around Mack who tries to shoot her but misses, wasting more ammo.

He runs after Melinda shooting wildly. He’s not sure how, but somehow he gets a hit. Melinda falls to the ground, the health bar flashing. 10% health, 5% health, 4% health. Melinda shoots Mack but he shoots her again. 1% health.

The screen goes black and the words ‘Player 1 wins’ come up.

Melinda groans and sinks into the cushions.

“Yes!” Mack cheers. He high-fives Fitz. “It’s okay, May,” he grins. He slings an arm around her shoulders and hugs her. “You’ll have to try harder than that to beat me.”

“In that case, I expect you to be able to complete Level 8 missions successfully,” she jokes.

“Aw, come on. This is video game stuff.”

 

“That’s four hugs,” Skye mutters under her breath.

 

**5.**

Melinda sees Mack staring miserably at Lola again. This is three times in one week. She’s going to have to have a talk with Coulson, see if she can get a deal going. Make Mack the only engineer allowed to play about with Lola. He’s ruining her focus when she’s doing tai chi. _Especially_ when he huffs and lets out loud sighs.

She finds Coulson in his office, as usual. “Mack’s annoying me,” she says as an opener.

Coulson barely looks up. “So? You usually do something about that.”

“Lola,” she says, shutting the door and crossing her arms.

Coulson’s head snaps up. “What?” he asks in worry. “He hasn’t tried to work on her, has he?”

“No,” Melinda rolls her eyes. “You should let him, though. He’s just sitting there miserably staring at her. He’s missed two inventories and the welding for the Bus is falling behind schedule.”

Coulson sighs. “I’ll talk to him. See if I can get him to pull his head in.”

Melinda sighs.

She knew she wasn’t going to get him to let Mack work on Lola.

 

She goes on a mission the next day without hearing if Coulson’s talked to Mack. She assumes he hasn’t because she can see a crack in the Bus’s ramp that she _knows_ Mack would have otherwise fixed.

She flies the quinjet back to HQ. Her mission has been a success. An arms dealer wiped out although she’s not entirely sure why she had to go. She touches down in the hangar and lets the ramp down.

When she walks out, she sees her team trying to blend in, hanging around. They’re very conspicuous. She can hear Mack’s footsteps coming and she knows that any moment now he’ll be here. She stands a few metres away from the quinjet and waits. She’s not wrong.

Mack enters the hangar, his footsteps quick. He spots her and can’t contain the grin on his face. He bends down and spins her around, hands on her waist. She even grins back at him.

“Coulson let you work on Lola?” she asks even though she knows the answer.

“Full time,” he chuckles. “Don’t know how you did it.” He says his thanks over and over again.

“You were interrupting my tai chi,” Melinda says, shrugging his praise off.

She grunts as the air leaves her when he squeezes her in a bear hug.

“Mack,” she wheezes. “Mack, I … can’t breathe.”

He loosens his hold. “Sorry.” He sets her down gently and she smiles.

“You’re welcome,” she says and gives Skye a glare. “You need training in blending in. All of you,” she adds, looking at Coulson who hasn’t even tried. Lazy sod.

 

**+1.**

Melinda runs out of tea. She hunts through the base but her stash has run out as well. She switches to beer but it makes her feel like Hunter so she stops. She snaps at Skye when she’s late for training and then snaps at herself for being so snappish.

Her team starts avoiding her, making lame excuses to get out of the same room as her. Even Coulson. He apologises for not being able to get more tea for her but considering they’re flying in the Bus about three thousand feet above the ground, she doesn’t blame him. Much. He usually tells her when she’s running low and they’re about to be flying for several days without time to restock.

So when she finds a box of tea in the cupboard when she checks for the fifth time just in case, she immediately thinks Coulson. She asks him but he just gives her a concerned look and asks if she’s hallucinating.

She doesn’t bother asking the rest of the team. None of them even like her tea, with the exception of Skye who can tolerate it in small amounts.

Then it hits her. Mack. He’s the only one who hasn’t tried avoiding her and even suggested checking the cupboard again today. She joins the team for dinner, unlike the previous night where she had retreated to her bunk and sulked in silence.

Mack comes in late, shirt crinkled and grease stained. She goes over to him and wraps her arms around his torso. She rests her head on his chest. She barely comes up to his shoulder.

“So you found it, huh?” he smiles, bending over slightly and hugging her back.

“Yeah,” Melinda says quietly. “Thanks. Where’d you even get it?”

“I have a stash in case this ever happens,” Mack shrugs. “And I’m glad I do.”

“So, that’s like, the sixth time you two have hugged,” Skye points out, shovelling into a bowl of mac and cheese. “Am I missing anything here?”

Melinda glances at Mack. “Yeah, actually, you are. We’ve started … is dating the right word to use?”

She stares at the two, mouth hanging open. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Melinda smiles. “Oh no. Mack’s very kind. Very good with his hands,” she says with a devilish smirk.

Skye chokes on her food. Jemma thumps her back. Coulson raises his eyebrows.

Melinda holds a straight face until Skye just gives her an unimpressed glare. Mack chuckles.

“Liar,” she mutters.

Melinda cackles. “Can’t believe you actually fell for that. Wasn’t it like, last week that you said I was Coulson’s?”

“Well, you haven’t hugged him six times in the space of a month!”


End file.
